GCIS Weekly News 4/29/2016
Weekly Celebrations, Successes, and Up Coming Events!
GCIS Office News
GCIS Parents: as we work to continually improve safety measures we ask that all parents wait in the office area regarding all matters. If visiting, we ask that you sign in and wear a visitor badge.
Reading Challenge Update: Students worked hard at their reading challenge this month! Looks like in the near future 50 students get to throw a pie in my face!!! We will be scheduling this and will post the dates and times if you would like to join us!
Please remember to send lunch money with your students. There a various ways to pay! Just ask us how! All accounts must be in the positive before the end of the school year. If you have questions or concerns regarding this topic please give our office a call! 515-738-5721.
Join us for our first ever GCIS Color Run!
We are so excited to join up with families and our community for fun and fitness! Not to mention getting all colored up! Hoping for wonderful weather!
HERE is the link to the website and details!
Contact the office with any future question you may have. We can get you signed up even the day of the event! (515) 738-5721
GCIS Key Players of the Week!
Pictures from 4th & 5th Grade Web House Trip
Parents! Mark Your Calendars and Join Us If You Can!
GCIS Outdoor Drive Up Movie! Come Join us!
4th Grade Happenings!
Lit/SS: We are still working on learning the regions of the United States. We are touching on culture, landforms and natural disasters through our region unit.
Science- We have some amazing opinion pieces about what planets we could and could not live on if Earth became uninhabitable. The students are enjoying learning about the planets while we hit on a writing standard to share their knowledge.
Math- We started Unit 5 this week working with adding fractions with the same denominators.
We will be starting spring testing with the Fountas and Pinnell Reading test next week. Please make sure your child is still reading at least 20 minutes each night.
5th Grade Happenings!
Lit/SS: We have started our unit on Poetry. Students have been analyzing how visual elements contribute to the meaning, tone, and beauty of the text. We will be writing some of our own poetry next week and adding visual elements to complement the text. In Social Studies we had Robby Pedersen come and talk about Iowa history and answer questions that students created about life in the 1800s.
Math: We are working on line plots and entering data on line plots.
Science: We are finishing up with Igneous rocks and are moving to sedimentary rocks next week. Kids can start bringing in their collections. Please make sure they are labeled with their names!
6th Grade Happenings!
In science, students are exploring how our body systems work together to keep us alive. So far, they’ve discovered that the circulatory system is connected in some way to the respiratory system, skeletal system, muscular system, immune system, and nervous system. We will continue looking for more connections.
In math, students are working on solving equations with one and two variables.
In social studies and reading, we are continuing our political science unit. They have done some of their own research to find out more about how the American Constitution was created and why. They found out about the Articles of Confederation and what led state delegates to ratify the Constitution.
Music Mania
Spring Concert Information:
Who: 5th & 6th Grade Bands
5th Grade General Music
Date: Thursday, May 5, 2016
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Place: Greene County Middle School Gymnasium
5th Grade General Music:
The students will be performing a sports musical for the Spring Concert. The attire calls for shorts, jerseys and t-shirts. Students are aware of what their character requires for clothing. I have spoken with Mr. Palmer about band attire. He is okay with the students wearing their costuming for the band portion of the concert. This will save time transitioning from the Band sections of the concert to the Vocal section of the performance.
4th Grade General Music:
Based on data from a past summative evaluation of students’ knowledge of musical symbols, I have divided the students into varying groups to assist in strengthening basic music theory skills. Advanced students are working on Bass Clef notes. Remedial work is being done with note values and Treble Clef note identification.
6th General Music
6th Grade students are working in groups to create an original melodic composition. They are able to use any pitched instrument to create their piece including, but not limited to, xylophones, piano, guitar, band instruments. Students may also use computer-based programs to complete the project.
A new app released this year by Chrome allows students to experience a small piece of the digital world of music.
“Music is for everyone. So this year for Music In Our Schools month, we wanted to make learning music a bit more accessible to everyone by using technology that’s open to everyone: the web. Chrome Music Lab is a collection of experiments that let anyone, at any age, explore how music works. They're collaborations between musicians and coders, all built with the freely available Web Audio API. These experiments are just a start. Check out each experiment to find open-source code you can use to build your own.”
Band
Spring music concert is May 5th
4th grade instrument night is May 26th
4th grade instrument testing will begin soon. Likely after the Spring concert
FCS
We are in a grooming unit in FCS for 5th graders and we are watching teenagers struggle with acne, weight issues, and grooming. Many of our students know how it feels to others make fun of them for things they cannot control right now. So we are problem solving some of their options when grooming issues arise.
The sixth graders are wrapping up their finance unit by experiencing what it would be like to be financial planner for a family. Taking what the story tells them they have to be able to balance all the expenses and tell them why they made their choices.
Media & Tech Lit
Students in all grades put their math and science skills to work when exploring the Coaster Crafter website. They were tasked with completing several challenges pertaining to physics that are required to make a roller coaster run correctly. Each completed task on the website earns the students free roller coaster parts that they can use later on to create their own virtual roller coaster. The students really seemed to enjoy immersing themselves into the experience!
Students using the library this week were introduced to the author of ‘The Jungle Book’, Rudyard Kipling. Video presentations of some of his stories, including ‘Riki Tiki Tavi’, ‘The Elephant’s Child’, and ‘How the Whale Got His Throat’ were enjoyed by the classes.
Please encourage your children to continue reading throughout the summer months. A great place for free online literature is through a ‘portal’ created by our library here at GCISa, with many links listed for your child to go to. (This website also includes some of the places that students have explored through the school year….this includes ‘Coaster Crafter’ if you want to give it a try!) If you wish to access the ‘portal’, go to: portaportal.com and then in the guest access field, type in: GCISlibrary
Art
4th grade students are making art the way ancient Japanese fisherman used to do. It’s called Gyotaku! They also must make their fish print in it’s authentic habitat.
5th grade art students are making a symmetrical, radial design out of their names! They look so cool that you can’t even tell that it is their name unless you look very carefully.
6th grade art students are creating a micrography portrait, which is a portrait of themselves, but with writing for lines.
TAG
4th grade students are almost done with their castle and presentation. They put a lot more into it that I ever imagined! They are presenting a play and a poster to go along with the model of a real working castle. AWESOME!
5th and 6th grade TAG students just completed the America Answers National Quiz Bowl this week! 5th grade TAG students scored 985 points and ended up with an 83%! 6th grade TAG students scored 911 points and concluded with a 79%. It was a hard quiz with a lot of questions about recent world news events. They did an awesome job working as a team! Way to go!
Counselor's Corner
Basic Internet Safety
The Internet has drastically changed the way that children interact with the world. They have access to in-depth knowledge, tools to express their creativity, and people from all over the world. Yet along with offering a fascinating, new way to connect with the world, the Internet also offers new risks:
Cyberbullying
Exposure to inappropriate material
Online predators
- Revealing too much personal information
NetSmartz invites you to learn about the issues surrounding your children’s online lives.
Visit http://www.netsmartz.org/InternetSafety for more helpful information on internet saftey. Then use the discussion starters to help you begin a dialogue about safety with your children.
Learning to recognize the warning signs of these risks will allow trusted adults to intervene and lessen potential negative impacts. By acting as a resource, parents and guardians can help make the Internet a safer place for their families.
If your children are social networking, instant messaging, using webcams, or blogging, help them use these tools safely by learning how to use them yourself. Children whose parents and guardians regularly talk to them about personal safety are more likely to exhibit responsible behavior on their own.
Nurse News
Eating healthy with busy schedules can be difficult. KidsHealth lists 10 tips for healthy family eating. First parents supply the food chain. As a parent you decide what foods to buy and when to offer them. Second from the foods you offer your child should decide what they will eat or whether to eat at all. Third quit the “clean plate club”. Kids should decide when they have had enough to eat. Kids should learn to listen to their bodies and stop eating when they are full. I’ll talk about the other 7 tips in future newsletters.